Osvaldo Alonso officially ruled out for season opener

As expected, the Seattle Sounders will be without Osvaldo Alonso in Sunday's season opener against the New England Revolution. Alonso has missed all of preseason and underwent groin surgery short after training camp opened.

"He's making good progress," Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid said on Saturday. "We're happy with the progress he's making and I think he's still ahead of the timeline, but it's not going to impact this game."

Ahead of the schedule or not, it's still not clear when Alonso will actually return.

"We're tried not to set a timeline," Schmid said. "We want to see how he feels and see that he continues to make progress. Today, for example, his max speed was 84 percent of what his normal max speed is. Early on Tuesday or Wednesday he was at like 72 percent. He's already made big strides and we expect his next week will be his biggest week in terms of gains beause he's really able to get out there and do things. Does that make him possible for the San Jose game [on March 14]? I don't know. Does it make him possible for the Tijuana [on March 24] in preparation for Dallas [on March 28}? That's something we'll decide next week."

Schmid was also somewhat noncommittal on Brad Evans' availability. Evans missed about a week of training while helping to negotiate the new CBA and only resumed training on Friday. Schmid said he was confident with the work Evans had done in the preseason and would leave it up to his captain as to whether or not he could play.

The Revolution will be without injured defensive midfielder Jermaine Jones and may also be without Lee Nguyen, who's dealing with a nagging groin injury